it has been a while, but I vaguely recall that the novel Death Mark rather stepped on the toes of the adventure Tyrian Conspiracy. Does anyone remember how, and/or have suggestions for resolving the conflict. While we are at it, anyone know any other real story conflicts between various products? I am referring to story, not mechanics or 'setting' conflicts (such as: 'the impossibility of parts of the pentad based on description of Ur Draxa', etc.). Spoilers in this thread, obviously.

MODERATOR NOTE (by Big Mac): I've added the name of the two Dark Sun products under discussion to the topic title, to make it easier for people to work out what the topic is about.

This is kind of interesting, as Tyrian Conspiracy is DS3e (from The Burnt World of Athas) and Death Mark is a 4th Edition era Dark Sun novel, so I'm not sure how much "canon compliance" the 4e designers/authors would have been expected to put in.

From what I heard, some of the freebies on The Burnt World of Athas were actually unpublished (Havard calls them "vapourware") products that failed to get published during the 2nd Edition Era. So it's possible that Tyrian Conspiracy was designed to comply fully with 2e canon and it is also possible that Death Mark was designed to comply with the 2e canon that was actually published by TSR.

I don't know what the conflicts are yet (I still need to pick up Death Mark* at some point), but once someone works that out, I'd love to see if the authors can confirm what the were asked to make the two products comply with.

* = I thought it was about the Spelljammer Death Mark for a second and got overexcited.

The only one that immediately comes to mind was a very brief notation in The Verdant Passage of one of the characters (I think it was Agis) seeing a halfling extend their arm, palm facing down, which had been established as the gesture that wizards make to gather plants' life energy to power a spell.

Later, in The Cerulean Storm, the characters discuss how halflings can't use arcane spellcasting. When Rikus protests, Sadira says that they've seen halflings use elemental clerical magic, and psionics, but not arcane magic. It's a tiny retcon (since the original was presented as one character, later deceased, seeing something...and so might have been mistaken), but it is there.

If this novel is a 4e novel, then this novels takes into account the 4e canon. I mean, timeline rebooted to Kalak's dead, with some stuff from some sources happening (Dregoth, for instance), but the setting-changing sources (like the novels) just being a possibility, not something taken into account for the 4e timeline.

Alzrius wrote:The only one that immediately comes to mind was a very brief notation in The Verdant Passage of one of the characters (I think it was Agis) seeing a halfling extend their arm, palm facing down, which had been established as the gesture that wizards make to gather plants' life energy to power a spell.

Later, in The Cerulean Storm, the characters discuss how halflings can't use arcane spellcasting. When Rikus protests, Sadira says that they've seen halflings use elemental clerical magic, and psionics, but not arcane magic. It's a tiny retcon (since the original was presented as one character, later deceased, seeing something...and so might have been mistaken), but it is there.

In the original boxed set halflings could be illusionists, so I don't see where this "halflings can't be wizards" comes from :/

So I learned from a friend, that the issue I was referencing is that a few of the key characters in Tyrian Conspiracy get killed off in Death Mark. No more spoilers than that from me.) Of course Tyrian Conspiracy was written first, and through a non-canon (if recognized as official) outlet. Death Mark was written later, though it takes place earlier in the timeline, but after the 4e reboot of the setting. It is also a novel, and while one of the best for Dark Sun (according to many sources), it holds a stigma of being questionably canon itself--even for the 'Ultimate' re-imagining of the setting in 4e--because of that fact.

The only ways I see clear to reconcile the two (if one were inclined to do so) would be to assume that the characters who died were able to survive somehow. (Its been too long since I read either, so I am not much help.)
-Apotheot

That's the same reason I really love the 4e reboot for Dark Sun: beyond of what is stated in the Campaign and Monster books, all other material (adventures, novels, stuff from 2e) is potential, not something set in stone.